Galaxy Messier 49
History
The galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier on February 19, 1771. He described it as «difficult to see in a 3.5 foot [focal length] telescope». It was the first and largest galaxy in the Virgo Cluster that he had discovered. [4, 196]
Physical Properties
M 49 is an elliptical Seyfert 2 galaxy of the morphological type E2, contains around 200 billion mostly old stars. The last stars formed here about six billion years ago - before the birth of our sun. The diameter is 157'000 light years. The measured distances range from 16.8 Mpc to 19.28 Mpc (approximately 55 to 63 million light years). A supermassive black hole with about 500 million solar masses is up to mischief in the extremely active core and is a powerful source of X-rays. M 49 is also rich in globular clusters. About 6000 were counted here. The Milky Way has just 150 of them. The average age of globular clusters is around 10 billion years. [145, 273]
| Designations | PGC 41220: NGC 4472, UGC 7629, MCG 1-32-83, M 49, CGCG 42-134, ARP 134, VCC 1226 |
| Right Ascension (J2000.0) | 12h 29m 46.4s |
| Declination (J2000.0) | +07° 59' 58" |
| Morphological Type | E |
| Dimensions | 9.8' x 8.2' |
| Visual Magnitude | 9.3 mag |
| Radial Velocity (HRV) | 913 km/s |
| Position Angle | 155° |
Further Galaxies Nearby
Looking in the direction of M 49 there are other much smaller and fainter galaxies, which are listed here in tabular form only for the sake of shape.
| Name | RA [hms] | Dec [dms] | mType | Dim ['] | Btot [mag] | HRV [km/s] | PA [°] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NGC 4434 | 12 27 36.8 | +08 09 17 | E | 1.4 x 1.4 | 12.9 | 1073 | |
| NGC 4464 | 12 29 20.6 | +08 09 30 | S | .9 x .7 | 13.6 | 1255 | 0 |
| NGC 4465 | 12 29 23.6 | +08 01 37 | S | .2 x .2 | 15.6 | ||
| NGC 4467 | 12 29 30.3 | +07 59 38 | E | .4 x .3 | 15.0 | 1474 | |
| NGC 4466 | 12 29 30.6 | +07 41 47 | S | 1.1 x .3 | 14.8 | 760 | 101 |
| NGC 4470 | 12 29 37.9 | +07 49 21 | S | 1.3 x .9 | 13.1 | 2341 | 0 |
| NGC 4488 | 12 30 51.3 | +08 21 43 | SB | 3.8 x 1.5 | 13.0 | 5 | |
| NGC 4492, IC 3438 | 12 30 59.9 | +08 04 39 | S | 1.7 x 1.6 | 13.3 | 1767 |
Finder Chart
M 49 is located in the constellation Virgo about halfway between the stars Vindemiatrix (π Virginis) and ν Virginis. The best way to see the galaxy is from February to June.
